by Tom Holt
The dwarf sighed. “Forget it,” he said. “I’ll try somewhere else.”
It was turning out to be one of those days for Train son of Tram son of Tori. Here you, his supervisor had grunted at him, go and get some stuff from the store. He’d neglected to mention it wasn’t mining supplies he was being sent for, or consumables for the foundry or the toolroom; food, of all things; groceries, women’s concerns. But you didn’t answer back to the foreman when he gave you a direct order, so off Train had trotted, memorising the list as he trudged up the slope and down into the valley to the Human town. No big deal, he wouldn’t have thought. A bit of flour, some butter and lard and a few eggs. So why were the Tall Bastards making such a fuss about it?
“How many eggs?” demanded the boss at the Mercantile & General.
“Four thousand,” Train said, for the tenth time that morning. “Is that a lot, then?”
Whereupon the boss of the mercantile terminated the conversation, on the grounds that he didn’t appreciate Train’s sense of humour. Odd thing to say, but what can you expect from Snowheads?
“Of course we can supply four thousand eggs,” the Duke’s steward told him. “Not a problem. And the very finest quality, it goes without saying, His Grace has the finest collection of laying poultry in the Realms.”
“Good,” Train said.
“Just not,” the steward went on, “all at once. Two hundred a week, say, over twenty weeks, we could manage that easily. And you won’t find a better egg locally, I can assure you of that.”
“Four thousand eggs now,” Train clarified. “And we don’t give a stuff about quality.”
The steward gave him a smile you could’ve sharpened axes on. “The door is right behind you,” he said. “Thank you so much for dropping by.”
The annoying part of it was, everything else wasn’t a problem. A ton of flour? Sure, where do you want it delivered? Butter and lard? We’ve got stacks of it, see those barrels over there? It was just the stupid eggs. He scowled, and kicked a small stone down the dusty street. Not his fault. If there weren’t any eggs, there weren’t any eggs; nobody could hold him responsible for that. He could hear the foreman’s voice already. You’re useless, you are. Can’t you do just one simple thing?
“Excuse me.”
He looked up and saw a human; at least he assumed it was, because of the ridiculously excessive height, bloody show-offs, but he couldn’t tell for sure. He was all wrapped up in a swirly dark cloak and his face was overshadowed by his hood. Stupid, Train said to himself. Bet he keeps bumping into things all the time.
“You talking to me?”
“Yes,” the human said. “Look, please don’t take this the wrong way, and if you aren’t I really don’t mean anything by it, but you look to me like a dwarf who could do with some eggs.”
Train glared at him. The taller they are, the easier it is to reach their kneecaps. “You being funny?”
“I don’t think so. Only, it just so happens I have a huge consignment of eggs I need to get rid of in a hurry, before they go off.”
“Go off.”
“Yes. They do that, in this weather.”
“Have you tried penning them in?”
“I’m so sorry, I put that rather clumsily. Before they go bad. Spoil. In the heat.”
Well, Train thought. It’s possible he could have overheard, when he was talking to the stupid grocer. He hadn’t exactly kept his voice down, after all. “Huge consignment?”
“That’s right, yes. About four thousand. Customer ordered them, then cancelled at the last moment. If I turn round and go home again, by the time I get there, they won’t be any good for anything, barring a large political rally.”
“Four thousand.”
“Give or take one or two. Of course, I can do you a very good price.
“Chicken eggs? Not ants or herring roe or anything?”
“Chicken eggs. Look, do you want them or not? Only I’m in a bit of a hurry, for obvious reasons.”
Dwarves are by inclination and upbringing cautious businessmen, solid plodders rather than quicksilver entrepreneurs. Sometimes, though, you just have to go for it. “Done,” Train said. Then he remembered something he should’ve asked earlier. “How much?”
“Shilling a thousand?”
The foreman had apportioned twelve shillings for eggs. “Go on, then,” Train said. “If you can’t help a fellow creature out of a jam now and then, what sort of a world are we living in? Even a Tall Bastard,” he added magnanimously.
“Jolly good,” the stranger said. “Is that your cart over there?”
The stranger may have come across as a big vague and not-all-there, appearance-wise, but he was clearly enormously strong. It took him no time at all to load the egg boxes onto Train’s cart; every single crate neatly stacked, and tied down with rope so they wouldn’t shift about in transit. The coins didn’t jingle when Train dropped them into the stranger’s gloved hand, which was a bit odd. “Thanks,” the stranger said. “Pleasure doing business with you.” Then he turned away, and he must’ve walked very fast and gone into a building or behind a tree or something, because when Train looked for him to point out that he’d only given him three shillings by mistake, not four, he was nowhere to be seen. Ah well, his loss.
The foreman was—well, not pleased exactly, because nothing pleased him apart from shouting and terminating contracts of employment, but he wasn’t angry when Train got back to the Mountain and confirmed that, no, he hadn’t forgotten anything. Needless to say, the foreman went over everything, trying to find fault; but the best he could do in that line was draw attention to the eggs. “Where’d you get them from?” he wanted to know.
“Some tall git. Why?”
The foreman was grinning. The seller must’ve had way too much time on his hands, he said, because he’d gone to all the trouble of drawing little numbers on every single egg, along with a tiny picture of a lion.
BOOK THREE
All Orc and No Prey
“Are you sure,” Tinituviel said, “that this is a good idea?”
The goblin army, forty thousand strong, was camped out on the plain. Ten thousand black tents stood in ruler-straight rows like a field of nightmare cabbages, while from a thousand campfires thin plumes of smoke rose up into the eerily still air, and a thousand cauldrons gave off the thick, stifling aroma of goblin military cuisine; troll pie, dissident tikka masala and sweet and sour orc.
“It’s got to be done,” Mordak said firmly, as he nibbled listlessly at a spare rib. “Condition three, the Children of Fluor will leave the Golden Land and pass through the Gate of Flour and Eggs and occupy the high places and the low places and the Seat of Seeing, right? You reckon these new humans are the Children of Fluor. So, they’ve got to go.”
“Hm. Picking a fight with people you know nothing about, armed with impressive high-technology weapons—”
“There’s forty thousand of us and a handful of them,” Mordak said grimly. “First we ask them nicely, piss off or we do you. Hopefully, that’ll be that. Otherwise—” He shrugged. “It’s OK,” he said. “We’re used to being slaughtered like sheep, we take it on the chin and move on. Today is a good day to die, and all that crap. It’ll be fine.”
Contempt and respect don’t usually work and play nicely together, but they were strangely blended in the look she gave him. “This is just so goblin,” she said. “Still, far be it from me to interfere with deeply rooted cultural mores.”
“Fine. So what would you do?”
“Diplomacy,” she said firmly. “Backed up by dumping a few dead goats in their water supply. But, no, if your heart is set on playing soldiers, you go right ahead.”
“It’s our way,” Mordak said simply. “We believe that warriors who die gloriously in battle, sword in hand, striking a blow for Goblinkind against the common enemy are eventually, after twelve Cycles of the Wheel, reborn as termites.”
“Termites? That’s so—”
“You don’t
want to know what goblins who don’t die in battle get reborn as. Suffice to say, the lads are up for it, motivated, ready for a crack at Johnny Human. Of course the overwhelming odds in our favour helps a bit.”
Tinituviel wasn’t listening. “Who’s that?” she said.
Climbing slowly down the winding track that led down the side of the mountain were two tiny figures. As they drew closer, Mordak could make out a white flag. “Told you,” he said, trying not to let the relief show. “They’ve come to surrender.”
“Don’t bank on it,” Tinituviel said. “Could be they’re going to give you one last chance to go home, before they charge.”
They proved to be humans. One was a little man in a brown coat and a curious flat-topped cap. He looked to be very old, though he hobbled along surprisingly quickly. The other was hardly more than a boy, very tall and impossibly skinny. He was carrying the white flag and eating a large slice of pizza.
“Excuse me,” the old man said, “sir, miss. Would you happen to know where I can find King Mordak?”
“That’s me. Who are you?”
“Herald, sir. On behalf of the ladies and gents in the new estates, back up over the hill.” He studied the goblin camp for a moment, then nodded approvingly. “Fine army you got there, sir, very fine indeed. Reminds me of when I was in the service, forty years in the Supply Corps, happy days. Oh, this is my nephew Art. Say hello to His Majesty, Art.”
The boy nodded and carried on chewing.
“Herald,” Mordak reminded him.
“’Scuse me, sir? Oh yes. Art and me, we’re here on behalf of the, um, newly arrived community. Couldn’t help noticing, sir, not meaning to be nosy. All these soldiers.”
Mordak nodded grimly. “Tell your people,” he said, “they’ve got twenty-four hours to go back where they came from. Otherwise—”
He paused, assuming clarification was unnecessary. But the old man just blinked at him. “Otherwise, sir?”
“We kill the lot of them. Sorry,” Mordak added, “but there it is. Go or die. Their choice.”
That seemed to make the old man very sad. He turned and whispered something to the boy, who nodded and ate a cheese sandwich. “With respect, sir,” the old man said, “and Art and me, we can see absolutely where you’re coming from, strong arguments on both sides, not in any way wanting to imply there’s anything wrong with your position, nothing like that. But you can’t do that, sir. Sorry.”
The bristles on the back of Mordak’s neck were chafing against the iron bands of his gorget. They did that sometimes, though usually only when he was nervous about something. “You know what,” he said. “I rather think I can.”
“Sorry, sir,” the old man repeated. “But I don’t think we can let you. Art and me, that is. More than our job’s worth, if you see what I mean.”
“You’re going to stop us? You and the bottomless pit over there?”
The old man frowned and the boy glared at Mordak as he unwrapped a fruit scone. “Yes, sir,” the old man said. “And please, don’t say things like that where the boy can hear you, he’s sensitive, gets upset easily. Brings on his allergy. So if you wouldn’t mind—”
“Let’s get this absolutely straight,” Mordak said. “You two are going to stop us.”
“Oh, I do hope not, sir. Greatest respect for you personally, sir, all these splendid reforms you’ve been doing lately, crying shame if all that was to come to an end before you’d had a chance to carry it through. May I just say, sir, we’re both great fans of yours, Art and me, Art especially, aren’t you, son? We really admire your guts and vision and yes-we-can attitude.”
“But you’re going to stop me. You and him.”
“Yes, sir. If we got to.”
Mordak looked at him, and then at the boy, who was nibbling the chocolate off a mini Swiss roll. “Don’t go away,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Tinituviel was sitting on a rock, picking the petals off a rare moorland orchid. “Well?”
Mordak lowered his voice. “Those two.”
“What about them?”
“I don’t know. They seem harmless enough.”
“There you are, then.”
“Yes, but I don’t like it. If you were a small, vulnerable settlement and you happened to notice a vast horde of goblins bearing down on you, are they what you’d choose to hold the line against the darkness?”
She frowned. “Probably not, no. But bear in mind, this is humans we’re talking about.”
“You’re the one who keeps banging on about how well armed they are.”
“I suspect they may be trying to lull you into a true sense of security.”
“I don’t know,” Mordak repeated. “I have a really bad feeling.”
“Then don’t eat so many candied toenails.”
He shrugged and tramped back up the hill. “Twenty-three and three-quarter hours now,” he said. “I suggest you tell your people to start packing.”
The old man sighed. “Maybe if you and the young lady could spare a few minutes,” he said sadly. “There’s something that maybe you ought to see.”
Those damn bristles again. He could hear them scratching his armour. “What?”
“Much simpler to show you than try and explain. Come on, sir, it’s only a few yards up the hill.”
The old man did look very old indeed, but Mordak found he had to trot to keep up with him, which was no fun with such a steep gradient, while Tinituviel gave up trying and trudged slowly along the path he’d gouged through the heather.
“Yes, sir, forty years in the military, time of my life, until I decided it was time to try my luck on Civvy Street. So me and the boy, we set up our own private security agency, and, I have to say, we been going great guns ever since, no pun intended. Great guns.”
“What’s a—?”
Eventually they reached a small plateau, where Mordak saw a row of steel plates sitting on wooden stands, like easels. The plates were about two feet square and half an inch thick. “Just for demonstration purposes, you understand,” the old man called back over his shoulder. “Now then, Art, not so fast. Got to tell the gentleman and lady what they’re looking at first.”
The boy was sitting down on a low stool, eating a ham and cheese baguette. In front of him was a sort of tripod arrangement, on which sat a weird looking thing: a rectangular box fitted to the back of a thick-ribbed tube, with a sort of spout thing sticking out of the end. Hanging from a small opening in the side of the metal rectangle was a canvas belt, into which were stuck a lot of tiny brass bottles, each one with a long copper stopper or bung, pointy as an Elf’s ear.
“Wouldn’t stand there if I was you, sir, miss. Come over here by me, out of the way.”
Mordak did as he was told. “What is that thing?”
“That, sir? That’s a Vickers machine gun. Effective range two thousand yards, cyclic rate five hundred rounds a minute. You don’t see ’em about much these days, but this one’s quite a nice one, all matching numbers and still got most of the original paintwork. All right, Art, let ’er rip.”
The boy stuck the baguette between his teeth like a pirate’s cutlass, rested his hands on two spade-type grips and squeezed something. There was the most horrible noise, like someone banging very fast on an unsupported sheet of heavy tin with a sledgehammer. Empty tiny bottles flew out of one side of the rectangular box and formed a little pyramid. The racket went on for about fifteen seconds, which was a very long time, in context. Then it stopped. The boy let go of the handles, reclaimed his baguette and carried on eating.
When Mordak had recovered from the shock he glanced quickly round. Tinituviel was on her knees, her hands clamped over her ears; super-sensitive hearing isn’t always an unmixed blessing. He stared at the old man, who was flicking dust off the ribbed tube with a bit of yellow duster. “What the hell was all that about?”
The old man smiled. “Come and have a look,” he said.
The steel plates were a mess. If they’d been oa
k planks, you’d have diagnosed a century of intensive woodworm. Not so long ago, they’d been pristine.
It took Mordak a moment or so to get his voice working. “What happened?”
The old man’s grin was faintly condescending. “Bit technical, sir. Just think of it as being hit by a hundred and fifty invisible arrows shot from a bow so big not even a troll could lift it. Doesn’t really bear thinking about, sir, does it?”
Mordak had to strain to hear him. “That thing did all this?”
The old man nodded. “Now,” he went on, “from here to where your army is, sir, I make that about one thousand seven hundred yards. Of course, you could order all your brave goblins to charge up this hill, entirely within your rights there, you being the king and all, and I wouldn’t doubt for a second they’d do it, a fine, well-disciplined army like that, a real credit to you, sir, if I may say so. Only—” He paused, just for a moment. “Don’t suppose many of ’em would actually get here, if you follow me, sir. About six or seven maybe, possibly a dozen. And that’d be a shame, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so. A real shame.”
Mordak licked his lips, which were strangely dry. “I don’t suppose you’d consider—”
“Sorry, sir, not for sale. Normally I’d go a bit out of my way to oblige a fine gentleman like yourself, especially with all the good things you’ve been doing lately, the peace process and all, but the thing of it is, sir, it’s not actually mine to sell. On loan, properly speaking. Young Art’d have my hide just for considering it.”
Mordak nodded slowly. “Who did you say you work for?”
“Actually, sir, I didn’t. Not allowed to, see.” He tapped the side of his nose with a gnarled finger. “Client confidentiality, sir. Very important in our line of business. If you haven’t got the customer’s trust, what I always say is, what have you got?”
“A large sum of money?”
A look of genuine compassion glowed from behind the old man’s finger-thick spectacle lenses. “If only it was that simple, sir. But it isn’t, so there you go. Now then, sir, if you wouldn’t take exception to a word of well-meant advice from an old hand, one soldier to another, like, if I was you I’d get my men back where they belong, sir. Only it can be dead chilly in these mountains this time of year. Camping out, they could catch their death.”